Gaining access to a patient's circulatory system to perform some treatment has long been known using the Seldinger technique. In recent years, this same technique has been used to gain access to smaller arteries, such as the radial artery, in the limb extremities. Although many percutaneous devices, such as vascular introducers, have been shown to scale in order to provide access to these smaller diameter arteries, new problems have developed that appear to be only related to smaller arteries. For instance, after the vascular introducer has been inserted into the circulatory system, some procedure may be performed, such as dilation of another location with a balloon catheter. In some instances, during the procedure, the small artery can tend to constrict and grip the outer surface of the sheath of the vascular introducer, making its withdrawal from the patient more difficult after the procedure is performed. In other words, due to the constriction of the artery, substantial friction can be created between the outer surface of the sheath and the blood vessel wall, which can make withdrawal of the sheath difficult and may lead to trauma to the inner surface of the blood vessel wall.
The present disclosure is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.